Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

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9. SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
and Śrīdhara; and we may include in the list even Jayanta who wrote towards the end of the preceding century. Bhasarvajña wrote Nyayasara on which there are numerous commentaries. Vyomasiva wrote the Vyomavati commentary on the Prasastapāda Bhāṣya. Udayana, who tried to fuse together Nyaya and Vaiseṣika tenets, wrote Nyāyakusumāñjali, Atmatattva-viveka, Nyaya-vārtika-tātparya-parisuddhi (commentary on Vacaspati's Tātparyaṭikā), Kiraṇāvali (commentary on the Prasastapāda Bhāṣya), and Lakṣaṇāvalī (984 A. D.), a manual of Vaiseşika definitions.3 Śrīdhara wrote Nyayakandali (991 A. D.), a commentary on the Prasastapāda Bhāṣya. It should also be noted that the expansion of Nyaya and Vaiseṣika studies not only led to an intensive study of these systems but to the interpretation, criticism and refutation of the doctrines of the other schools, especially those of the Mimamsā, Buddhist and Samkhya systems. It is not rare to find in the writings of the period diverse doctrines of other schools fully and clearly stated before they are subjected to criticism or any attempt is made to refute them. This is particularly true of Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī, and we have already referred in this connection to Udayana's Nyāyakusumāñjali. For other examples we need refer only to the accounts of the Buddhist theory of Ideas (with illustrative quotations), the Mimamsa theory of the self-validity of cognitions (with citations from Kumarila), and the Samkhya theory of cognition in Vyomavati (pp. 524 ff., 579 ff., 521 ff.); the summary of Samkhya doctrines in Nyāyakusumanjali (chap. 1); and the discussion of the Prabhakara theory of error, and the clear presentation of Sphoṭavada and other tenets in Śrīdhara's Nyayakandali (Pp. 180 ff,, 268 ff.). The latter work quotes, besides, various authors and works, e. g. Tantravārtika and Slokavārtika (P. 257),* Mandana's Sphotasiddhi (P. 270) and Vidhiviveka (P. 274), the Buddhist logician Dharmottara (P. 76) etc. The interrelation of the various schools is outside the scope of our discussion; but it is evident that there was considerable activity in the sphere of speculative thought, and the doctrines put forward by the different systems formed the basis of the intellectual movement of the century. It is perhaps the mutual conflict of so many schools of thought that led certain thinkers of the age to suggest the way to a synthesis, or proclaim the common ultimate goal of all systems and schools. In a remarkable passage of Atmatattvaviveka, Udayana "attempts to show that in its gradual ascent
1 See G. N. Kaviraja in Sarasvati Bhavana Studies, Vol. III, p. 104.
2 Ibid. p. 110.
3 Udayana wrote also a commentary on Gotama's Sūtras (Fe) and tuff, an original treatise on Nyaya. See G. N. Kaviraja in Sarasvati Bhavana Studies, Vol. III, p. 112 ff.
Cf. Jha's Translation, p. 549.
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